Cat People Horror

The essay titled “Workers Revolt: The Great Cat Massacre of the Rue Saint-Séverin” by Robert Darnton discusses a massacre of cats that, according to the worker Nicolas Contat, took place in Paris in the first half of the 1700s. Contat’s writes about two apprentices, Jerome and Léveille. They had poor living conditions, were given food scraps to eat, and they had to deal with the master and their superiors. On top of all this, during the night stray cats would howl, keeping them awake. One day Léveille decided to crawl along the roof until he got near the master’s bedroom and began to howl with the cats. The aster and his wife became convinced that they were being bewitched and ordered the apprentices to get rid of the cats. They chased cats of rooftops, hit them with iron bars, and trapped them in sacks. They also performed mock trials where the rest of the workshop would join in and hang the cats with a noose. Although to us this seems like a horrific act of violence, the workers turned it into a celebration. These different views of the same event exist because of the different societies. The hatred these workers had for the bourgeois, popular celebrations, and the things that cats symbolized all contributed to the humor of the cat massacre. We must first understand these to be able to understand the cat massacre.

I admired the character Princess Jasmine in the film “Secondhand Lions” by Tim McCanlies because she was a minor character but she stood out in the film. This movie was about a fourteen year old boy whose mother sent him off to his Great Uncle's farm on a mission to find their millions that rumor said they had stashed away. His summer stay features stories of his Uncle's past and of their adventures a long time ago with princesses, wars and evil sheiks. Film techniques helped manifest Jasmine’s importance in the movie through narration, music and costume. This essay in my opinion, concludes Jasmine was a minor character that was seen rarely, but her presence was overall substantial.

What our filmmakers are trying to do is appeal to our humanity. They want us to feel the connection to the world and to the woman in the car, only to shut us down like so many of us have shut the world out. This aspect of the film is what makes it so incredibly upsetting yet enlightening. We witness a connection between Catherine and the woman in the car and then it is taken away from us without a second thought.

It is a well known fact that Edgar Allan Poe‘s stories are famous for producing horror or terror in his readers beyond description. However, it is one of this essay’s attempts to precisely describe these two characteristics present in The pit and the pendulum and The black cat. Horror may be defined as “the feeling of revulsion that usually occurs after something frightening is seen, heard, or otherwise experienced. It is the feeling one gets after coming to an awful realization or experiencing a deeply unpleasant occurrence.” On the contrary terror is described as “the feeling of dread and anticipation that precedes the horrifying experience” These two concepts are thought to be crucial when analyzing Poe’s writings. It is going to be

My initial reaction to the film was of utter shock at the brutally raw reality of the film. Upon reflection and commentary from other sources, the film’s simple yet vastly effective filmmaking techniques of developing the explicit and implicit meaning of the film. The explicit meaning, as

“Psycho” is a classic suspense film directed by Alfred Hitchcock which features a central female protagonist, a seemingly ordinary young woman named Marion Crane, who crosses paths with a dangerous mentally ill motel owner, Norman Bates. As their strange relationship develops, a dominant theme of good versus evil is introduced to the audience through the use of characterisation, editing, mise-en-scene and various other media techniques.

Shocking audiences of the 1960’s, Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’ is one of the most influential films in motion picture history, often being referenced to as the the origin of thriller films. Hitchcock successfully incorporates cinematography, music, and multiple techniques, rendering the perfect amount of tension and suspense right until the climax of the film. Thus, evoking the thrill after which the genre is named.

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat” is a tale of a man who suffers from alcoholism. In this tale the protagonist whose name is never revealed is deranged by his addiction. The story begins with the narrator describing his love for all his pets. He says “I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them.” (Poe p.1) Although, the narrators’ personality alters when his beloved black cat becomes a falling victim to his atrocity. After arriving home intoxicated one night the man seized his cat Pluto and proceeded to carve out one of the cats’ eyes from the socket. As he awoke the next morning to this frightful

This image resonates with the reader as they can imagine how Mali’s life in captivity is slowly destroying her both mentally and physically. The evidence of her scarred hands prove her insanity, as the will to inflict pain upon herself is truly horrendous. The atrocities that Mali has witnessed on this alien planet only furthers her identity to act like an animalistic being. Similarly, the fight between Leon and Lucky demonstrate how stressful situations push them to the brink of humanity. As the heated argument spirals out of control, the animalism within both boys surface.

In Stephen King’s somewhat subjective essay in the 1984 Playboy magazine, Why We Crave Horror Movies, King describes his reasoning behind why so many people are fond of watching movies residing in the horror genre. The content of his essay, though inserted in an unconventional area for

Throughout cinema, there has always been space in our hearts for the gore and intrigue that come from horror films. Though they come with different plots, there remains “the monster”, the character that brings along disgust, horror, suspense, and even sympathy. In Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), our monster is Norman Bates, the boy next door. This was one of the first times in American cinema that the killer was brought home, paving the way for the future of horror movies. According to Robin Wood in “An Introduction to the America Horror Film” (183-208), Bates follows the formula of the Monster being a human psychotic. This is conveyed through his normal façade portrayed with his introduction, the audience’s ambivalence, the use of

Horror films are movies that aim to elicit a strong physiological reaction in the viewer, such as raised heartbeat and fear. Three horror films by the names of Psycho, Scream and The Messengers will be analysed and compared to an episode of the popular children’s show Shaun the Sheep. Five elements will be addressed in this analysis, those being camera techniques, Mise-en-scene, Editing, Lighting and Sound.

Poe gives many gruesome and frightening details that make “The Black Cat” a horror fiction short story. Horror fiction is a genre of fiction designed to startle, frighten, or disgust the reader by inducing feelings of horror. Poe inducing feelings of horror through things that take place in the story such as the stabbing of Pluto, the first cat. When Poe wrote, “I took from my waistcoat pocket a penknife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of the eyes from the socket!” (Poe 436), he gives the reader a startled and disgusting feeling due to the gruesome depth of the sentence. Poe “darkens” the story even more with the hanging of Pluto and his wife’s murder. Poe writes about his wife’s murder and he gives evil details on the ideas of burying her in his

The way Hayao Miyazaki entices his viewers to accept his idea about a new relationship between nature and humanity was never really talked about or discussed in the past couple of years. The film ‘My Neighbor Totoro,’ with all the religious elements and the social impact it had established the director Miyazaki as one of the best animators not just in Japan, but around the world. What really gives this film power and fame is not just the mysterious and magical world it has or the cute character that Miyazaki created, but also the film’s way of influencing the audience by conveying an unfamiliar message about this three-layered relationship between nature and humans. Comparing both Miyazaki’s childhood memories and the story depicted helps him connect the audience’s feelings with the characters and making this realistic representation of human emotion in the film believable and realistic not only to children, but even to adults. What also makes the world more familiar to the spectators is the director’s use of a common fear from many people’s early years in this unknown and magical world. This common fear is clearly illustrated when the girls meet Susuwatari, a black spirit in the old empty house that stays in dark spaces and prefers to be left alone, and only children can see it. The introduction of this spirit is a good transition between the world of magic and reality. It confirms and insists about the existence of the unknown, and introduces a world of illusion and

When you think of the classic tale of Beauty and the Beast, what do you remember? In the typical plot of Beauty and the Beast, Beauty aids the Beast in his transformation from beast to man. The focus of the typical storyline is the battle between innate traits and characteristics accepted by society. However, in Angela Carter’s post-modern rendition, Tiger’s Bride, not only does she shift the focus to explore the relationship between love and self-acceptance, but she also changes the plot in efforts to make Beauty undergo a transformation. Through Carter’s tone, exploration of power dynamics, and use of imagery, the story follows the progression of the love and self-acceptance that influences Beauty’s metamorphosis.